为防作弊，全国断网！

The Algerian government has taken a dramatic step to try and curb rampant exam cheating by repeatedly turning off the internet during the exam season.

为了遏制猖獗的考试作弊行为，阿尔及利亚政府采取了颇具魄力的对策：高考季全国断网!

Yes, all of the internet. For everyone. For a period of six days.

是的，所有的互联网。所有人。为期六天。

On Wednesday this week the plug was pulled for the first time as students started sitting down to their exam papers. Algerians can't get to their memes or cat videos for blocks of an hour at a time, designed to coincide with the beginning of exams.

上周三，当学生们坐下来开始答题时，某处开关也被拉了下来。阿尔及利亚人发现每过一段时间就有一个小时无法上网摸鱼或看猫咪视频，这种间歇性的断网是为了与全国高考各个科目的时间相同步。

It is of course a big step to take – but the country has a big problem with cheats. In 2016, some 300,000 students had to retake exams after papers were leaked early on the web and circulated around social media.

这当然是教育改革迈出的一大步——这个国家存在着严重的学业欺诈问题。2016年，网络上流出了高考真题，在社交媒体推波助澜之下沸沸扬扬，大约30万名学生不得不重新考试。

Last year attempts were made to restrict access to social media platforms, but ultimately those measures weren't effective enough – so this year the authorities are going all in. Both cell networks and broadband are getting switched off during the allotted periods.

去年，人们试图在考试期间对社交平台的访问进行限制，但最终这些措施效果都不大理想，所以今年有关部门祭出杀招：无线和宽带在考试时都会被关闭。

Education Minister Nouria Benghabrit said the government wasn't comfortable with the decision, but also added that "we should not passively stand in front of such a possible leak", as reported by the BBC.

教育部长努里亚·班加布里特表示，政府对此决定并不满意，但也补充说，“我们不应该总是被动地亡羊补牢”，应该采取主动积极的措施。

As this Radio Algeria tweet shows, some days have as much as three hours of downtime, so people are going to have to schedule their Netflix binge watching carefully. Those blocks stretch across the first part of each high school exam period.

有些日子里有三门考试科目，所以当地人不得不仔细安排他们的Netflix刷剧日程。

We're not sure exactly what's stopping someone from getting a paper in advance, printing it off and committing it to memory before the internet goes dark, but we're not about to ask – it sounds like the Algerian authorities are not to be messed with.

你看，既然有人神通广大能提前拿到真题，那我们不确定究竟是什么阻止他在互联网静默开始前就将其发送给买家客户，但我们也不打算提问，毕竟阿尔及利亚教育部门的决心可嘉，不应该向他们泼冷水。

What the web blackouts will do is stop students using devices to look up answers in the exam hall. Phone jammers, surveillance cameras, and metal detectors have also been set up in more than 2,000 exam centres, CNN reports.

断网至少可以阻止学生使用手机在考场中向外求助。美国有线电视新闻网报道，在2000多个考点，还设置了无线干扰器，监视摄像机和金属探测器。

"Securing the high-school exams is very important," Benghabrit told a news conference, reports the New York Times. "Our commitment to the principle of fairness and the principle of equal opportunity led us to take all kinds of measures and they include cutting off the internet."

班加布里特在新闻发布会上说，“确保高中毕业考试的公平性非常重要，我们所珍视的公平原则和平等机会原则促使我们采取所有的必要措施，包括切断互联网。”

The baccalaureate exams under scrutiny are hugely important in helping Algerians land a good job after school, and so there's a lot of pressure to perform.

在阿尔及利亚，一份好大学的学位文凭，对毕业后找到好工作帮助极大，所以铤而走险的学生不少。

And you can partly blame our increasingly high-tech society for the rise in academic unscrupulousness: with so many tiny smart devices now available, getting anything from a leaked paper to a mind-bending audio illusion is easier than it's ever been.

你可以将学业上肆无忌惮的作弊归咎于技术的进步：随着微型智能设备的出现，比起以前夹带小抄，高科技的作弊手段防不胜防。

As you can imagine, many Algerians aren't best pleased.

你也可以想象，大多数阿尔及利亚人并不会觉得开心。

"I have no idea why they need to be so aggressive," Lyès Rekkeb, who works at a web design agency, told Jon Henley at the Guardian.

“我不知道为什么他们需要如此激进的手段，”在网页设计公司工作的Lyès Rekkeb对卫报说。

"For me and lots of people like me, it's a huge inconvenience. I lose half a day's work. Why couldn't they just close down the mobile internet? There must be other solutions."

“对于我和很多像我这样的人来说，这也太不方便了，我失去了一半的工作时间，为什么他们不能只关闭移动互联网?肯定有其他更好的方法啊。”

At least it gives Algerians an excuse not to check their phones quite so often during the periods of downtime.

这么说来，断网也可以把人们从手机依赖中解救出来。

We'll have to wait and see whether these extreme measures help curb the cheating this exam season. In the meantime, check out Oracle's Internet Intelligence site, and you can see the spikes where Algeria gets cut off from the web at large.

让我们拭目以待，看看这些极端措施是否有助于遏制考试的作弊行为。同时，查看Oracle的互联网智能站点，你可以看到阿尔及利亚的断网峰图。